Had my spinal surgery back in '04 - fusion/discectomy at L4/L5, with the titanium rods and screws. They actually removed parts of my vertebrae and used cadaver bone implants and harvested my own stem cells from my pelvis to fill in around the implants. Heck of a thing.Oldgringo wrote:Monday, we're going up to Tyler:
Me, for an Open MRI leading to possible spinal surgery. After lunch, I have an appointment and examination/evaluation leading to surgical removal of my cataracts (one eye at a time) In the course of the day, Mrs. Oldgringo will get her hair done and we'll eat lunch at Cheng's Chinese Bistro.
While growing old is a privilege denied to many, it definitely ain't for sissies. You youngsters might as well get braced, it'll be here before you know it.
Search found 7 matches
Re: Cataracts
Re: Cataracts
Already prepared.Crossfire wrote:On the downside, I could suddenly see the difference between our TV and HDTV, so we HAD to replace it. Be prepared.
Re: Cataracts
This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.....having to shine a flashlight onto something that you should be able to see without the flashlight. And I'm the same way. If I drop something on the floor and it rolls under a couch, it's staying there until the next time we move the couch, because I can't see it. Even daylight seems to have less "pop" than it used to.sjfcontrol wrote:I recently complained to my ophthalmologist that everything seemed dark. If I drop something on the floor and it rolls under the desk, I need a flashlight to find it (even though the room is adequately lit). If I need to adjust controls on a piece of equipment in a cabinet, again I need a flashlight to see what I'm adjusting. It's frustrating!
Re: Cataracts
I thought of another question for those who've had the surgery..... did you notice that your night vision improved afterward? It occurred to me tonight on my way home from church — minus my bifocals which are out for new lenses — that one of the things I've struggled with for a while is that I can't see details in the dark anymore. It's kind of like those flatscreen TVs that don't really reproduce shades of black very well, so details get lost. Does that get better afterward?
Re: Cataracts
These replies are reassuring. I just didn't have any knowledge other than what the optometrist told me, and I wanted to know what kind of experience others had had with it.
My eyesight started to go downhill in my late thirties. In my twenties, I was 20/15 in the left eye, and 20/17 in the right. I could see like an eagle at distance, and was fine at reading. In my case, the decline was the usual farsightedness that begins around 40 and just gets worse as you age. For the first few years i just needed reading glasses, but was fine for everything else. At some point, I begin to see light "flares" when night driving, caused by other headlights and so on. The optometrist said I had astigmatism, and gave me a prescription for bifocals/progressives for driving at night. Eventually, I had to wear them all the time, and I had to have prescription sunglasses too.
I'm going to wait for a while for the surgery. I bought new glasses yesterday on my optometrist's recommendation. He said I didn't need the surgery right away, but eventually will. I don't want to waste the cost of the glasses, so I'll wait until they just don't help anymore, and then I'll followup with an opthamologist.
My eyesight started to go downhill in my late thirties. In my twenties, I was 20/15 in the left eye, and 20/17 in the right. I could see like an eagle at distance, and was fine at reading. In my case, the decline was the usual farsightedness that begins around 40 and just gets worse as you age. For the first few years i just needed reading glasses, but was fine for everything else. At some point, I begin to see light "flares" when night driving, caused by other headlights and so on. The optometrist said I had astigmatism, and gave me a prescription for bifocals/progressives for driving at night. Eventually, I had to wear them all the time, and I had to have prescription sunglasses too.
I'm going to wait for a while for the surgery. I bought new glasses yesterday on my optometrist's recommendation. He said I didn't need the surgery right away, but eventually will. I don't want to waste the cost of the glasses, so I'll wait until they just don't help anymore, and then I'll followup with an opthamologist.
Re: Cataracts
I understand the difference between an optometrist and an opthamologist. One has a medical degree with a surgical residency, and an optometrist does not. My question has to do with the options of replacement lenses available For surgical implant, and how did they affect your long range rifle shooting ability.....and how you compensated for it.
The reason I asked was because the most commonly used replacement lens for people above a certain age (which happens to be my age) only focuses at a specific distance. It does not have the ability to focus at all distances, and therefore sharp vision is limited to the focal length of that lens.
He said that lenses do exist which can be focused by the muscles of the eye at multiple distances, but they don't work in the eyes of older people because those muscles have been atrophied by the processes of aging. He said they don't even work that well in all young people. He said that there is another multi focal lens which is like those multi focal contact lenses, which have an outer ring that focuses at a different distance than the inner part, both the close range and longer range images are projected onto the retina, and the brain learns to select the image that it needs. There may be other options, I don't remember.
My question is along the lines of, what options were you offered, if any, and which did you choose and why, and how has that affected your ability to shoot a rifle? Not sure I can make it any clearer than that.
The reason I asked was because the most commonly used replacement lens for people above a certain age (which happens to be my age) only focuses at a specific distance. It does not have the ability to focus at all distances, and therefore sharp vision is limited to the focal length of that lens.
He said that lenses do exist which can be focused by the muscles of the eye at multiple distances, but they don't work in the eyes of older people because those muscles have been atrophied by the processes of aging. He said they don't even work that well in all young people. He said that there is another multi focal lens which is like those multi focal contact lenses, which have an outer ring that focuses at a different distance than the inner part, both the close range and longer range images are projected onto the retina, and the brain learns to select the image that it needs. There may be other options, I don't remember.
My question is along the lines of, what options were you offered, if any, and which did you choose and why, and how has that affected your ability to shoot a rifle? Not sure I can make it any clearer than that.
Cataracts
So I went to see my optometrist yesterday, since it had been over a year since my last visit, and my vision has been deteriorating. Overall, my eyes are healthy, no macular degeneration or other pathologies, my prescription has changed.....but not by that much. However, I have a first time diagnosis of cataracts in both eyes, slightly worse in the left than the right eyes. Needless to say, I was taken aback.
But in retrospect, it makes sense..... The past two times I've been shooting rifles, I went to Tacpro on August 22, and I went to Parker County Sportsman Club on October 11. At Tacpro, I shot at 500 yards; and at PCSC I shot at 200 yards. At Tacpro, using a 4.5-16x50 Viper PST scope, the target (a 2/3 scale IPSC steel silhouette) was clearly visible, even at 500 yards and despite some mirage effect. (Pictures here: viewtopic.php?f=87&t=74156&p=933696&hil ... ro#p933696" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). At PCSC, using the same scope just 2 months later, and at only 200 yards, I had a lot of trouble getting the target evenly into focus....whether I was using the side focus knob or the diopter adjustment on the eyepiece. Even zoomed in all the way, I could get part of the target board into focus, but other parts of the target board seemed blurry. I describe it as "patchy blurriness". At the time, I wrote it off to needing a new prescription. But in retrospect, I think that each patch of blurriness was a recently developed cataract, surrounded by areas of good focus.
My optometrist says that cataract surgery won't be necessary right away. He's been monitoring my eyes for 4 years now, so it's not likely that this is a misdiagnosis. I also know that there are fewer types of lenses that are effective for older people than for younger people.
So I was wondering for those of you who have had cataract surgery, what sort of choices you've made as far as lenses, and how it affected your shooting ability, particularly with a rifle. The biggest bummer for me so far is how it might affect that.
But in retrospect, it makes sense..... The past two times I've been shooting rifles, I went to Tacpro on August 22, and I went to Parker County Sportsman Club on October 11. At Tacpro, I shot at 500 yards; and at PCSC I shot at 200 yards. At Tacpro, using a 4.5-16x50 Viper PST scope, the target (a 2/3 scale IPSC steel silhouette) was clearly visible, even at 500 yards and despite some mirage effect. (Pictures here: viewtopic.php?f=87&t=74156&p=933696&hil ... ro#p933696" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). At PCSC, using the same scope just 2 months later, and at only 200 yards, I had a lot of trouble getting the target evenly into focus....whether I was using the side focus knob or the diopter adjustment on the eyepiece. Even zoomed in all the way, I could get part of the target board into focus, but other parts of the target board seemed blurry. I describe it as "patchy blurriness". At the time, I wrote it off to needing a new prescription. But in retrospect, I think that each patch of blurriness was a recently developed cataract, surrounded by areas of good focus.
My optometrist says that cataract surgery won't be necessary right away. He's been monitoring my eyes for 4 years now, so it's not likely that this is a misdiagnosis. I also know that there are fewer types of lenses that are effective for older people than for younger people.
So I was wondering for those of you who have had cataract surgery, what sort of choices you've made as far as lenses, and how it affected your shooting ability, particularly with a rifle. The biggest bummer for me so far is how it might affect that.